Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to the field of wirelessly transmitting data and, in particular, to determining the suitability or configuration for deploying a U-NII wireless device in a specified geographical area.
Description of the Related Art
People often have multiple televisions in their home. Historically, each television that was plugged into a coaxial-cable jack could receive content from a content service provider. However, recent developments in technology and standards have popularized the use of the set-top box. Now, televisions may be connected to set-top boxes to receive content from the content service provider. Often the set-top box provides the content to the television via a wired connection. But more recently, the popularity of using wireless technology to connect set-top boxes and televisions has increased. While wireless connections provide flexibility in the placement of televisions relative to the set-top box, wireless connections provide many other challenges due to the real-time nature of the content. So the use of wireless connections should provide content in a manner that maintains a user experience that is comparable to the user experience obtained when using a wired connection, such as smooth video playback.
The flexibility of wireless technology also can lead to the use of an increased number of wireless devices and wireless connections in a home. However, increasing the number of wireless devices in a home can also increase the likelihood of disruptions in the wireless connections due to the limited number and shared nature of wireless radio channels. This problem can greatly increase in densely populated areas, such as apartment buildings, especially near government radar systems, such as airports.
Wireless devices operating in the U-NII (Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure) radio band, which many set-top boxes do, may operate in 4 different ranges or sub-bands: U-NII-1, U-NII-2, U-NII-2 extended or U-NII-2e, or U-NII-3. Each of these bands is separated into multiple channels, with each channel having a different specified bandwidths. Under Federal Communication Commission rules, wireless devices are required to use Dynamic Frequency Selection when operating in the U-NII-2 and U-NII-2e bands. Dynamic Frequency Selection, otherwise known as dynamic frequency switching or “RADAR avoidance,” is a mechanism designed to avoid co-channel interference with incumbent Federal radar systems by dynamically detecting radar signals and avoiding co-channel operation with those systems.
Government radar systems, including Terminal Doppler Weather Radar systems, sometimes operate in the U-NII-2 or U-NII-2e bands. Wireless device transmissions can interfere with the operation or effectiveness of these incumbent radar systems if they transmit in the same bands that the incumbent radar systems are operating. Because the government radar systems are considered to be mission critical, wireless devices using these bands are required to use Dynamic Frequency Selection to reduce the possibility of interfering with the incumbent radar systems.
Prior to the start of any transmission, a wireless device equipped with Dynamic Frequency Selection capability must continually monitor the radio environment for radar's presence. If the wireless device determines that a radar signal is present in a given channel, it must utilize an automatic channel selection mechanism to either select another channel to avoid interference with radar, or go into a “sleep mode” if no other channel is available.